Legends don’t die. Now get the fuck up, Kraven.
Poor Sony, or more like poor us fans. Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (which exists outside of the actual Spider-Man films) has all but sucked, barely reaching the heights of average. However, as someone who has slightly enjoyed some of the SSU films (pretty much just Venom), it appears to be officially dead. Instead, Sony will rely on the real money maker being hand in hand with Marvel as they focus on Spider-Man-led movies alone. Sadly, Kraven the Hunter’s colossal flop at the box office this past weekend seemed to be the final nail in the SSU’s coffin. But was it justified?
As I said above, I enjoyed the Venom films. This is mainly due to Tom Hardy giving his absolute all to the role and seemingly having fun while playing Eddie and the alien parasite. I completely skipped Morbius and Madame Web as nothing about them excited me and it appears I didn’t miss out on anything worthwhile. “So what excited you enough to go see Kraven in the theater?”, you may be asking yourself with an exasperated look on your face. It’s honestly quite simple, it was because of my sexy baby boy Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Bullet Train).
One of our favorite things to do around the Wasteland is to fantasy cast certain roles and movies, and I think I picked Mr. Johnson…Mr. Taylor-Johnson? I don’t know how hyphenates work. I have picked Aaron too many times most notably him being my Rambo and Snake Plisken. Safe to say, much like Tom Hardy, I have season tickets to anything ATJ is in and he doesn’t disappoint as Kraven.
First things first, I had a fun time watching this in my XD luxury lounger seat as there were some solid action sequences and ATJ is awesome. He exudes a primal intensity that feels fitting for the role, capturing both the character’s ferocity and inner turmoil. His physicality in the action scenes is particularly impressive, with well-choreographed sequences that showcase Kraven’s animalistic combat style. We get to witness this from the opening scene which provides an almost James Bond-type scenario where our main guy has to escape an unescapable situation to show the audience how badass he really is. Hmmm ATJ and James Bond…anywho, he escapes just like Bond but instead of fancy gadgets, he is as strong as a gorilla and as fast as a lion running on all fours as he escapes the henchmen into a snowstorm. When he isn’t being a ferocious beast, he is as cool as the other side of the pillow with a certain detachment from his vigilante persona.
After this, we settle in with a flashback that was well done and didn’t drag to give us a sense of Kraven’s relationship with his brother and domineering father while also giving us his origin story of how he received his animalistic powers. Basically, a secret potion was used on him after he was attacked and killed by a lion, and the lion’s blood mixed with his blood while the potion was being used. Don’t ask. He comes back to life feeling weird, as one does, and decides to abandon his brother and father to live in the jungle where he feels more at home.
Once we are back in the present day, Kraven has made a name for himself as a vigilante taking out drug cartels and poachers. “He has a list and once you are on that list, you never come off it.” Or so we are told many times and you know what they say about lists? I don’t know what they say but he ends up on a big bad’s list as well. Things begin to pick up as he returns home to celebrate his brother’s birthday but Dmitri ends up kidnapped in a wild chase sequence where barefoot Kraven chases an SUV through the city like a lion jacked up on speed hunts for food. The shoulder tackle of the speeding SUV was most impressive.
Sadly, this is where Sony begins to Sony. We get clunky and cliched dialogue. Possibly interesting characters are introduced with no time to breathe or really shine. A baddie named The Foreigner was right on the edge of being interesting and stealing the movie and would have made a better main villain than the Rhino. Speaking of the Rhino, I didn’t mind the idea behind his character. They slow-played it enough to where you are eager to see the fullness of Rhino’s glory, but once we do, it’s short-lived with him not really doing much which was a bummer. Although, I thought his look was cool enough.
Overall, a number of Kraven the Hunter’s criticisms are justified but it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. To me, it is worth a watch for Taylor-Johnson alone if you are a fan, and does have some fun action sequences with some gore. It’s hard to tell if it was on purpose or not, but there was a campiness and almost cartoonish characters and situations here that were fun to me. I would compare it to 2018’s Venom in that way. I’m still an immature teenage boy at heart so the crude and eye-rolling humor works for me at times. There is a literal line where the buff, bestial-ass kicker says “The press call me the Hunter,” he says, dazzling the ace lawyer Calypso Ezili (Ariana DeBose) with his stoner-like detachment. “But I prefer Kraven.” He lets the moment hang there before adding, “With a K.” I laughed at the absurdity of it. Sue me.